5 ms·

In California. EDIT: I’m wrong and need to pay more attention. See comments below.

by messe 4y ago

michaelmrose 4y ago
A state with a population of 40M people. If CA were a country it would be 37th in the world. Importantly software available in the US will ultimately be available to CA citizens.
- usrn 4y ago
  Different things are available in different states all the time.
not2b 4y ago
Read more carefully. The decision to send the case back to California on the argument that it wasn't solely a copyright matter was made by a federal court. It wasn't a California court decision.
tedivm 4y ago
No, that's the whole point. The lawsuit started in California, but Vizio tried to move it to federal court claiming that since it was a copyright claim it belonged in Federal court and not in state court. The federal court said that because this was a contract issue, not just a copyright concern, that copyright law could not be used to bypass the contract law to move the case to federal court. >The May 13 ruling by the Honorable Josephine L. Staton stated that the claim from Software Freedom Conservancy succeeded in the “extra element test” and was not preempted by copyright claims, and the court finds “that the enforcement of ‘an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws’ amounts to an ‘extra element,’ and therefore, SFC's claims are not preempted.“ This isn't California specific at all.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  > This isn't California specific at all. It's a District court. This is specific to California by nature of the jurisdiction. The finding of the Honorable Josephine L. Staton is, an element of that case, not the ruling. This will end up in the Appellate. It's a good first step, but don't overstate the facts.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    > This will end up in the Appellate. Maybe, but that isn't clear. They will try to appeal, but it isn't clear if the appeals court will accept the appeal. If the court doesn't accept the appeal, then all courts will be informed about this for future cases as lawyers try to build their case before whatever court they are in front of. If it is appealed, then whatever the final appeal result is will win (final appeal can be different in different courts so there could be conflicts until the supreme court takes this.). My guess is the appeals court won't take this. Just a guess though.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gurjeet 4y ago
Even if the claimant wins the case "just" in California, it impacts all companies doing business in California. And since almost every large (US/World) business operates in California, this ruling will help all consumers/customers of those companies. (Late addition): In fact, it seems that SFConservancy _wants_ the case to be tried "just" in California, hence the fought in Federal court and brought the case back in a State court. Perhaps the advantage is that it's easier to win the case at State level, but the ramifications of a win will be US-wide, or even Worldwide, as explained above.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
redleader55 4y ago
Parent is right, sort of - it's only in US for now. It would be interesting to see this tested in other courts of law and included in trade agreements.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Judges in Europe have ruled that software licenses are contractual agreements. So we already have some case law in some countries establishing this. The tricky bit in common-law countries like the USA and UK is that normally, a contract requires three things: an offer, acceptance, and consideration -- something of value exchanged for the offer in the contract. No consideration means no contract, and the license reverts to a bare license -- one that can be revoked at any time for any reason. If we now have case law establishing that the GPL fulfills the requirements of a contract, that will make software under the GPL safer, as it will not be at risk of having the copyright holders revoke permission to use or distribute it once it's out there under the GPL.

In California. EDIT: I’m wrong and need to pay more attention. See comments below.

by messe 4y ago

In California. EDIT: I’m wrong and need to pay more attention. See comments below.

A state with a population of 40M people. If CA were a country it would be 37th in the world. Importantly software available in the US will ultimately be available to CA citizens.

usrn 4y ago
Different things are available in different states all the time.

not2b 4y ago

Read more carefully. The decision to send the case back to California on the argument that it wasn't solely a copyright matter was made by a federal court. It wasn't a California court decision.

tedivm 4y ago

No, that's the whole point. The lawsuit started in California, but Vizio tried to move it to federal court claiming that since it was a copyright claim it belonged in Federal court and not in state court. The federal court said that because this was a contract issue, not just a copyright concern, that copyright law could not be used to bypass the contract law to move the case to federal court. >The May 13 ruling by the Honorable Josephine L. Staton stated that the claim from Software Freedom Conservancy succeeded in the “extra element test” and was not preempted by copyright claims, and the court finds “that the enforcement of ‘an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws’ amounts to an ‘extra element,’ and therefore, SFC's claims are not preempted.“ This isn't California specific at all.

Supermancho 4y ago
> This isn't California specific at all. It's a District court. This is specific to California by nature of the jurisdiction. The finding of the Honorable Josephine L. Staton is, an element of that case, not the ruling. This will end up in the Appellate. It's a good first step, but don't overstate the facts.
- bluGill 4y ago
  > This will end up in the Appellate. Maybe, but that isn't clear. They will try to appeal, but it isn't clear if the appeals court will accept the appeal. If the court doesn't accept the appeal, then all courts will be informed about this for future cases as lawyers try to build their case before whatever court they are in front of. If it is appealed, then whatever the final appeal result is will win (final appeal can be different in different courts so there could be conflicts until the supreme court takes this.). My guess is the appeals court won't take this. Just a guess though.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

gurjeet 4y ago

Even if the claimant wins the case "just" in California, it impacts all companies doing business in California. And since almost every large (US/World) business operates in California, this ruling will help all consumers/customers of those companies. (Late addition): In fact, it seems that SFConservancy _wants_ the case to be tried "just" in California, hence the fought in Federal court and brought the case back in a State court. Perhaps the advantage is that it's easier to win the case at State level, but the ramifications of a win will be US-wide, or even Worldwide, as explained above.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

redleader55 4y ago

Parent is right, sort of - it's only in US for now. It would be interesting to see this tested in other courts of law and included in trade agreements.

bitwize 4y ago
Judges in Europe have ruled that software licenses are contractual agreements. So we already have some case law in some countries establishing this. The tricky bit in common-law countries like the USA and UK is that normally, a contract requires three things: an offer, acceptance, and consideration -- something of value exchanged for the offer in the contract. No consideration means no contract, and the license reverts to a bare license -- one that can be revoked at any time for any reason. If we now have case law establishing that the GPL fulfills the requirements of a contract, that will make software under the GPL safer, as it will not be at risk of having the copyright holders revoke permission to use or distribute it once it's out there under the GPL.